Haryana gets onto right to service bandwagon, though differently

Haryana seems to be following in the footsteps of neighbouring Punjab and far flung Bihar by promising prompt delivery of services, albeit without the backing of a legislation.

With an eye on priming lackadaisical government machinery, the state government has issued directions listing out a series of services, the delivery of which has to be ensured in a time bound manner by the government officials. The directions will come into effect from June 21.

Sources said that government after trying out this moderate model may later reinforce it by bring a legislation to effectively wrap up citizen’s right to services.

Chief Secretary, Urvashi Gulati said that in the first phase, the state government has made a provision for delivery of 15 services in a time bound manner. “We have designated officers responsible for the delivery of these services and officers who will be responsible for monitoring the services and receiving complaints for non-delivery of services.

Every citizen has a right to claim delivery of services from the government in a prompt, efficient and time bound manner,’’ the Chief Secretary said. Moreover, to fix accountability, all the departments and wings of the government have been asked to evolve a system for evaluating the performance of officials in this regard.

“Those adhering to time limit will be given 1 mark and those not adhering will get negatively marked. Timely delivery of service will now be a criterion for evaluation of performance of officers. A monitoring software will also be developed,’’ said the instructions issued by Chief Secretary’s office.

Top officials said that a new column in the annual confidential reports (ACR) of the officials could be introduced for appraising their delivery of service. Some of the services listed out by the government under the time bound delivery logo include issuance of new ration card (15 days), issuance of domicile certificate (7 working days), learner’s driving licence (5 working days) and permanent driving license ( 7 working days), issuance of birth and death certificate (3 working days), land registration (same day), registration of light vehicles (7 working days), new and temporary electricity connections (30 working days), new water and sewerage connections (12 working days), approval of building plans (25 working days), enhancement of electricity load ( 30 working days), sanction of mutation of land (5 working days), providing copies of land records ( 5 working days), issuance of SC/ST/OBC certificate ( 7 working days), issuance of resident/domicile certificate ( 7 working days), inclusion/deletion of name of family members in ration card ( 7 days) etc.